


Filing Jointly

by catfishCaper



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, And Think Of The Children, Cullen critical, F/F, F/M, Fake Dalish Rituals, Fine Dwarven Crafts Direct from Orzammar, Gen, Marriage of Convenience, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Romantic Comedy, Taxes, flagrant BS about how spirits work in Dragon Age, if you think i actually researched taxes for this you're dead wrong, not really but some of y'all will see it that way, specifically Marriage for Tax Purposes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 17:32:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14242326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catfishCaper/pseuds/catfishCaper
Summary: Marriage: a sacred commitment between two good, platonic pals, one of whom is rich, the other of whom is using the first for their money. Who said romance was dead?A classic tale of two bros getting legally married to commit massive tax fraud, and falling in love along the way.





	1. The Proposal

**Author's Note:**

> you're welcome, tara

“Well, Seeker, the thing you need to know about me is that while I’d like to be an impartial storyteller in this next part of the, ah, Tale of the Champion, I have to say, her life and mine are pretty heavily intertwined. You know, that happens when you’re married to a person for so many years,” Varric said to Cassandra Penteghast, pacing angrily in front of him.   
  
“Just do your best to report the information accurately, dwarf. I have been kind to you so far. That could change.”   
  
Varric rolled his eyes. “All right, all right. Well, it was after we left the Deep Roads, like I was telling you, that it all started.”   
  
They hadn’t been all that close before the Deep Roads, but getting left somewhere to die and having to fight your way out did things to a bond between people. Hawke and Varric were pals, sure, but they had also discovered they would die for each other.   
  
And Varric liked to do things for his friends, especially if it meant a favor in return. So when Hawke complained about how restoring the Amell wealth and household was being more trouble than it was worth, who would he be if he didn’t offer to help?   
  
“Like, should I hire a financial advisor, or something? I don’t know if I want some stranger touching my money,” she complained to him one night.   
  
“You don’t need one of those,” Varric told her. “I’ll just do it. I’m great at managing financials, I’ve been doing it for my family for years. Besides, those advisor people charge too much, they’ll rob you blind.”   
  
“Oh.” Hawke blinked. “Well. That’s very kind of you, Varric. But how do I know you won’t rob me blind, too?”   
  
“Come on. Do I look like a swindler?”   
  
“Yeah?”   
  
“Thanks. But seriously. We’re friends, Hawke, I’ll take care of you.”   
  
And it went like that for a while. They stayed friends, though neither could deny the other was, at least, moderately attractive. Well, Varric thought Hawke was pretty good-looking, though Hawke thought Varric was the hottest thing she’d ever seen--   
  
“Stick to the facts, Tethras!” Cassandra told him.   
  
Anyway. They were interested in each other, but neither of them did anything about it. They also...were not exactly aware of the other’s feelings. Varric had many things to focus on--taking over his family’s spot in the Merchant’s Guild, tracking down his wayward brother, courteous flirtations with a smith in Orlais. Who could blame him for not noticing that Hawke touched him more than was strictly necessary, and laughed at almost everything he said? She was a touchy person, and everything he said was funny. Sue him.   
  
As for Hawke, she was just dense as a hunk of silverite. That couldn’t be held against her. It wouldn’t be fair.   
  
Varric, although he was a good friend, neglected to inform Hawke that he wasn’t being entirely kosher with his use of her bank account. He wasn’t taking anything out, of course, that would be rude. But that wasn’t to say he wasn’t putting anything _ in _ .   
  
No, Seeker, that’s not an innuendo.   
  
Hawke traipsed over to Varric’s table in the Hanged Man one night, and took a seat without being invited. This was not strictly unusual. And then she opened her mouth.   
  
“So I went to the bank today, because I wanted to see if I could get it set up so that Bethany could access our money while she’s in the Circle. And I saw something unusual! And since you’re my friend who handles my money, I wanted to ask you about it.”   
  
Varric surely wasn’t nervous when Hawke said this. Her cheerful tone didn’t seem to imply that he was in trouble (he learned later that he could never trust her tone to betray her mood), so he simply replied, “Well, what’s going on?”   
  
“Well, when I say I saw something unusual, I mean, zeroes. Like, way more than there should be, just based on what I remember putting in, and those projections you showed me of how my investments you made in my name should be paying off. What’s, uh, what’s going on?” she asked.   
  
“You actually read those projections?”   
  
“Despite what many people think, I actually do know how to read.”   
  
“Shocking.”   
  
“How else would I be able to tell which of the dumpsters in Lowtown is the one that has my name on it, for all the criminals I kill?”   
  
It wasn’t an insult, according to Aveline. It was just that Hawke and her friends killed  _ so many criminals _ that the Watch was getting tired of dealing with the bodies being strewn about the streets, and so they’d asked her to dump all of them in a specially marked dumpster. It was just more expedient that way.   
  
“So here’s the thing, Hawke.” Varric settled back in his chair. “The government in this town is a little...partial to certain groups of people.”   
  
“Uh-huh.”   
  
“Specifically, partial  _ against _ dwarves, and  _ towards _ noble humans. So I did a totally harmless thing, and borrowed your bank account for my own money, for tax reasons. Purely so I wouldn’t be discriminated against. It’s nothing personal!”   
  
“Um, okay.”   
  
“And I pay my portion of what you’re taxed, obviously, I’m not a  _ criminal _ . ”   
  
“Yeah you are.”   
  
“Yeah I am. But not in...okay, exactly in that way, what I’m doing is literally a crime. But I wouldn’t do anything that would hurt  _ you _ , Hawke.”   
  
“Oh, of course. Because I would kick your ass.”   
  
“Well, because you’d say, ‘Varric, I’m going to kick your ass,’ and then you’d hurt yourself trying, and I would just feel so bad for you. Poor Hawke, I would say. She didn’t know what she was doing.”   
  
Hawke shook her head sadly. “I never do.”   
  
“Here’s the thing, though, Hawke. I’m pretty sure the city is starting to catch wise to this little scheme I’m running here, and soon they might come after both of us for it. It’ll look like you’ve been aiding and abetting me, you know?”   
  
“I actually don’t know what abetting means, but go on.”   
  
“Doesn’t matter. Point is, I really need to come up with some kind of excuse as to why all my money is in your hands. And it has to be plausible, because that Seneschal Bran is wily, and he’ll see through any normal excuses.”   
  
“So what are you saying?”   
  
“I’m saying, maybe a familial reason would work?   
  
Hawke frowned. “Do you want me to...adopt you? I mean, you wouldn’t be the first to ask. Every time I look out my window there’s at least six more street urchins begging for me to give them a chance, and saying they  _ definitely _ won’t rob me. It’s starting to annoy Mother.”   
  
So maybe earlier, when it was said that Varric thought Hawke was “all right,” that might have been a bit of a fabrication. See, in the time between getting out of the Deep Roads and this conversation, they’d spent a lot of time together, and realized just how much they had in common. They both had dead parents that they loved and resented in equal measure. The same went for their brothers, though Bartrand (probably) wasn’t dead yet. They were both rogue types who were good at bluffing in ways of the heart, but were secretly tender on the inside.   
  
“But not too tender,” Varric added, while Seeker Penteghast glared.   
  
And he hated to admit it, at least at that point in their relationship, but Hawke was beautiful. Not in the typical way. Varric had met many beautiful women in his time, but something about the way Hawke laughed after she burped out a curse word on a dare from Isabela clutched his heart like the alluring eyes of another beauty never could. The grins she gave him when he made a particularly good shot, followed by a “Nice one!” did things to him love poetry never would.   
  
So what he was saying, when he told Hawke that he needed a legitimate reason for his money to be in her bank account, was that. Just, all of that. But not in so many words. Instead, what it came out as was,   
  
“No, Hawke, I think we should get married.”   
  
Because why bother messily confessing your love and dating when you could just get right to the end of it all at once?   
  
Hawke stared at him. “Whoa! Okay! Um?”   
  
She looked like a halla cornered by a hunter. Because remember, Varric’s feelings were not one-sided. Hawke had a dedicated interest in him, too. So the little voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Bethany was saying, “This is a strange and convoluted romantic gesture!” Which it was. But the voice that sounded like Carver said, “No it isn’t, he’s just using you to commit tax fraud. God, the two of you are made for each other.” And that one won out. Which, god damn it, Hawke.   
  
Hawke crossed her arms, and put a very unconvincing expression of nonchalance on her face. “Uh, I mean, yeah, bro. Of course. No problem. Whatever you need.”   
  
At this point Varric and Hawke hadn’t been friends for very long, a little over a year was all. But like Varric knew in his heart that redheads were more trouble than they were worth (apologies to Aveline Vallen), he knew that Hawke was not the kind of person to say “bro.”   
  
Obviously what had happened was that she had heard his very subtle and smooth romantic overture for what it was, did not feel the same way, but didn’t want to reject him because they were such good friends, and this was her way of letting him down easy. (This was not the case.) So, in the interest of that friendship, and being able to spend more time around her, he should really just drop it, for both their sakes. (Which, god damn it, Varric.)   
  
(At least Seeker Penteghast looked intrigued by the story.   
  
“And so then what happened?” she asked in a voice that was meant to sound neutral but hid excitement. Interesting. Varric filed that away for later.   
  
“Well, then, we had to have a wedding, of course.”)


	2. The Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some lightly implied merrill/mahariel and isabela/fenris in this chapter, blink and you'll miss it type stuff
> 
> also talia brosca is tara's warden! hi talia :)

“Varric, you’re probably the smartest person I know,” said Inquisitor Trevelyan, dropping into a chair next to Varric at his table in the main hall.   
  
“Probably?”   
  
“I can’t imply anyone is smarter than literally any of the mages I know, so probably has to do for you. Unless you want to fight Solas, he’s right in there.” She pointed at the door.   
  
“You’d leave Josephine out, though?” Varric asked.   
  
Trevelyan dropped her head onto the table. “Well, I’m having this issue, and I can’t go to Josephine about it because she’s part of it, and I don’t want to worry her or make her do a bunch of extra work.”   
  
Varric set down his pen. “What’s this about, kid?”   
  
“Well, ever since that whole duel with Lord Whatever, and me telling Josie I love her, her parents have been sending me all this mail about the two of us getting maaaaaarried.” She sighed. “And I do want to marry Josephine. But I don’t know anything about weddings. And I thought you might? I don’t know why I thought that. I can leave you alone.” Trevelyan sat up and moved to leave.   
  
“Wait a minute there, kid. I might be able to help you. Do you want to hear the story of  _ my  _ wedding?” Varric asked.   
  
Trevelyan blinked. “You’re  _ married _ ?”   
  
In traditional Marcher weddings, the woman’s family did most of the actual wedding planning while the man’s family picked who they wanted to go and annoyed the woman’s family about it. This obviously differed when there were different combinations of genders involved, or if the bride in question was Marian Hawke.   
  
“You want me to do  _ what _ ? ”   
  
Or at least, that’s what she  _ would _ have said, if Varric had asked her to do literally anything to prepare for their upcoming nuptials besides “show up.”   
  
Instead, Varric skipped his bride and went right to her mother about it, and within six months, they’d put something rather nice together. Hawke came along to taste cakes and try on dresses (she’d actually chosen to wear something red, because “white isn’t my color and it’ll fuck with all the guests I don’t care about who end up wearing it too.”), and to write a surprisingly sweet and thoughtful letter to Meredith Stannard asking her to please let Bethany out for one fun night to see her sister wed? With a Templar escort, of course. Also enclosed is a thousand sovereign donation but don’t let that influence your decision at all! Yes, you can cuff her. Yes, I will donate another thousand sovereigns. Listen, it's not like there aren't going to be other mages there anyway, and I'll give you another thousand sovereigns if you pretend for both our sakes I didn't write that.   
  
At that point, Hawke’s relationship with the Circle was almost positive, and even Meredith couldn’t ignore three thousand sovereigns, so Hawke received a short missive that Bethany would be attending, cuffed, accompanied by Knight-Captain Cullen Rutherford.   
  
Hawke was happy about that, but still a little annoyed by the idea of having an actual wedding.   
  
“What is the point? Why can’t we just sign a piece of paper saying we’re married and then give it to Aveline to deal with?”   
  
“Unfortunately, this has to be a believable marriage, and that means a big, stupid wedding.”   
  
“Fine, but Champion will be my maid of honor, and you better WEEP when I read you my vows.”   
  
“Only if you cry when I get choked up and say that I wish my mother could be alive to see it.”   
  
“FINE.”   
  
Planning the wedding might have been fun if he’d been doing it with Hawke, but he was doing it with her mother, so it was really all business. The fun part was, therefore, supposed to be the bachelor and bachelorette parties.   
  
But after months of work planning this, on top of his regular work, Varric just wanted to have a quiet night in at the Hanged Man, maybe watch a few fights, and get a good night’s sleep so he wouldn’t look like a tired idiot at his wedding the next day.   
  
His best three male friends (Fenris, Anders, and Sebastian Vael) all got up individually and decided that wasn’t going to happen.   
  
(“Varric, is you complaining about your bachelor party really important?”   
  
“Well, this part is really more of a cautionary tale to not let even the smallest thing fall by the wayside. But then I’ll tell you about the ceremony, and how drunk we got the Knight-Commander. Oh, you should’ve seen it.”   
  
“I’ll have to ask him later.”)   
  
If they had maybe all arrived in intervals, it could have worked out. They could have gone in some kind of order doing whatever they all had planned. As it was, they all arrived at the exact same time, Fenris and Anders started fighting, pulled Sebastian into it, and within twenty minutes, the four of them were kicked out of the Hanged Man for the night.   
  
They continued fighting even as they wandered the streets of Lowtown--Fenris had planned some kind of drinking and fighting event, which sounded good, but Anders said he wasn’t going to heal them if they got hurt because then he wouldn’t have the energy for some kind of elemental shoot-out, also while getting drunk. Sebastian had come along to make sure no one drank, so they wouldn’t be hungover during the wedding, which was fair, but also sounded like it was going to suck, so he was cruelly shot down.   
  
It was summer, but it was still cold out, the cool air coming up from the sea, and this was really not how Varric had wanted to spend his evening. He let the three idiots lead him around a corner, then hid in an alley and ran off back to the bar. They’d let him back in if he was all alone.   
  
Judging by how the argument continued loudly even after he snuck off, they hadn’t even noticed he was missing.   
  
He was almost back to the Hanged Man when he heard someone jogging up to him. He whipped around, Bianca ready to fire, but it was Sebastian, looking apologetic about what had happened. “Varric. Sorry we got you kicked out of the bar.”   
  
Varric put Bianca down. “Eh, it’s all right. Fresh air’s good for you, puts some hair on your chest.” He thumped his bare and already hairy chest.   
  
Sebastian cracked a smile. “I’ll be sure to tell Hawke she’s welcome, then.”   
  
Varric laughed. “You think she’s into that?”   
  
“I don’t know why she’d agree to marry you, otherwise. I can’t claim to be an expert, but I would assume such a lush…” He chuckled. “Well, it might be a bit of a deal-breaker. Though I would like to think that you and Hawke love each other enough that you could reach a compromise.”   
  
Varric would like to think that, too. Hawke probably wasn’t in love with him, she would have said something by now. When she had a thought, she blurted it out, especially when it was controversial. How many times had she told templars to suck her dick? So many times.   
  
Did Varric love Hawke? He’d thought about this before, but not exactly in those terms. He’d fight for her, and kill for her--hell, he’d proposed. Why would he even think to do that if there wasn’t something there? And he knew there was something there, but was it love?   
  
When he thought about others he’d loved in his life...he’d loved his mother even if he’d also resented her, and he had  _ thought _ he loved Bianca. Was this like that?   
  
Not at all. But that wasn’t the answer to the question. Did he love Hawke?   
  
Two nights before, they’d had their weekly Wicked Grace game. Isabela was cleaning house as usual, and that week, Anders had forgotten to wear his layers over his robe. He’d quickly become naked. Hawke had made half a dozen jokes about his “wizard’s staff” in about ten minutes. She also spat beer out of her nose about five times in the hours they were there. Her cheeks were flushed bright red what felt like all night, and it seemed every other time she opened her mouth was to laugh obnoxiously, right in his ear.   
  
Yes. He did love Hawke.   
  
Sebastian was still looking at Varric expectantly, so Varric smiled and said, “See you at the wedding tomorrow,” and went back inside.   
  
“But Varric wasn’t the only one partying that night!”   
  
The thing about demons was that they were way more easily influenced than they liked to pretend. Sorry, spirits. Hawke was doing her best to use more neutral language, but she hadn’t been around Justice (Vengeance?) in a while, so it was hard to remember without Anders giving her disapproving looks.   
  
A nightmare demon might feed off fear and grow bigger and bigger, but when it was hit with enough knives to lose that power and get smaller, it grew more susceptible to having its nature changed. This was just a theory, but it seemed to be working. The more funny and happy stories Hawke told it, the less angry it was.   
  
“So let me tell you about my bachelorette party.”   
  
So while Varric’s party wasn’t really a party, and ended up kind of sucking ass, the Hawke contingent was actually doing a pretty spectacular job. Isabela stole a boat, Merrill kidnapped Aveline, and they all got very drunk out on the open sea.   
  
“Don’t worry about getting back to land,” Isabela reassured them. “I sail better when I’m tipsy.”   
  
Aveline surveyed the bottom of the boat, which couldn’t actually be seen due to all the bottles. “Tipsy. Right.”   
  
They took the rowboat out past the biggest ships in Kirkwall’s harbor. Merrill lit her staff up like a lamp to ward away anyone who might hit them, and then Isabela insisted they play Never Have I Ever.   
  
“Oh, I’m very good at this game,” Merrill said.   
  
“Sure you are, kitten.”   
  
As drinks were poured, lips grew looser and smiles wider. Aveline, usually quiet about her relationship with her the dead Wesley, even cracked a few jokes about what marriage was like. “Varric is civilized enough to take care of his own dirty laundry, I think,” she said. “And Wesley was too, once he found it all stuffed in his armor so he couldn’t go to training one morning.”   
  
“Well, well, Lady Knight! Not such a stodgy girl after all, I see,” Isabela teased.   
  
“You don’t marry a man to take care of him. You do it to take care of each  _ other _ . ”   
  
“Oh, yes,” Merrill said. “For us, if anything is going wrong in the marriage, everyone in the camp knows. So you have to work hard, or else the next thing you know the Keeper’s apprentice is being sent to speak with you about how you and your wife haven’t spoken in a while, and the next thing you know, she’s fighting off a werewolf...long story.” She smiled. “Don’t worry about it.”   
  
“Kitten, I want to hear  _ everything _ about your life, now.”   
  
“It’s not that interesting! Really! Come, let’s talk about Hawke and Varric. Are you excited to be married?”   
  
“Oh, yes,” Hawke drawled. “He’ll be an excellent trophy husband.”   
  
“Yes, of  _ course _ he’s only marrying you for your money,” Isabela said, rolling her eyes. “There’s absolutely nothing real between the two of you.”   
  
“Nope.” Hawke popped the “p.” “Not a thing, except about a foot and a half.”   
  
Aveline grinned, but Merrill gave a severe thumbs down. “Sorry, Hawke, that was a bad joke.”   
  
“You wound me, Merrill.”   
  
“There can’t be  _ nothing _ !” Isabela continued. “I mean, at least admit that the two of you have had sex already. It’s natural. Frankly, it would be stranger to me if you hadn’t.”   
  
“We haven’t!” Hawke protested. She looked down at the bottle in her hand. How much had she drank in the past few hours? “It’s been a gentlemen’s agreement. Well, gentleman and me.” She giggled. “Nothing.”   
  
Isabela looked incredibly disappointed. “That is the worst news I have heard all night, Hawke, and earlier I learned that Fenris does not know how to read.”   
  
“What were you doing with Fenris?” Merrill asked.   
  
“What is  _ she _ doing marrying someone she’s not in love with?” Isabela exclaimed.   
  
“Pfft, well, I didn’t say I wasn’t  _ in love _ with him,” Hawke replied flippantly.   
  
The others stared at her. It took her a second, but then Hawke realized what she had said.   
  
“I mean. Um. Bad wording, what I meant to say was…”   
  
Isabela’s eyes were wide. “Oh, shit. I was only joking, I didn’t actually think…I mean, I’m obviously in support of this, but...”   
  
“You should tell him,” Aveline blurted out.   
  
“What? No! I can’t do that! It’ll ruin our marriage. And on our wedding day? Mother will have my head.”   
  
“You should do it!” cried Merrill. “Really! If you really do love him, you have to let him know. Don’t learn that lesson the hard way, like me.” Merrill took a drink of whatever she was holding. To Hawke it looked like it might be white wine, but Hawke was also drunk and in a rocking boat and so what her eyes could see really could not be trusted.   
  
“What  _ is _ your life, Merrill?” Aveline asked.   
  
“Complicated. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Hawke doesn’t make a horrible mistake by keeping her feelings inside of her.”   
  
“Where else would I keep my feelings? In a diary, like a child? Please. No, they will stay in my head and I will not say them aloud, and then I will die, hopefully many years from now, surrounded by the many dogs I will adopt.” Hawke crossed her arms. “And Varric will obviously be there too, as my husband.”   
  
“Your _ loving  _ husband, who you _ love _ , because you’re going to tell him!” Merrill persisted.   
  
“Mmmmmmaybe. I will think about it. Could we please just drop it?”   
  
They did, and after that, the mood was kind of ruined, so Isabela rowed them back to shore and escorted Merrill back to the Alienage. Aveline went with Hawke back up to Hightown.   
  
“Good luck tomorrow,” she said to Hawke at the door to her mansion.   
  
“You too,” Hawke said sleepily.   
  
(“Would you like to hear about the wedding now?” Hawke asked the nightmare demon.   
  
The demon, unable to move because Hawke had cut off all of its legs, and also because she was sitting on it, groaned.   
  
“Of course you would.”)   
  
The ceremony! As one party defaulted to Andrastian when asked about her faith, and the other was a dwarf, there had been some disagreements about how to consecrate the whole thing. The dwarf side (not Varric, but his distant relatives and such) had insisted on a traditional dwarven wedding. Varric had to step in and let them know that he was, under no circumstances, getting married underground, since the last time he’d gone down there he had almost been killed by darkspawn. What was fortunate was that Hawke’s mother wasn’t particularly militant about having the thing in an actual Chantry, so they were compromising and having it outside, on genuine soil, for the dwarven contingent.   
  
On one side were a whole load of vaguely annoyed dwarves who were unhappy about having to come out to the surface, but were doing it anyway because of Varric’s standing in the merchant’s guild and the political ties that could be forged during the wedding. Varric looked vaguely pleased every time he heard one of them grumble about how the sun was too bright, or how they were afraid they might fall up into the sky if they didn’t hold onto the chairs properly. Also, Anders, who had been put as far away from Fenris as was possible without giving clear preference to one of the two of them. He was on the far end of Varric’s side, and Fenris was on the far end of Hawke’s.   
  
On Hawke’s side were her friends, family, various Kirkwall nobility who hadn’t actually been invited, and Cullen Rutherford.   
  
Someone had sandwiched the poor boy right between Bethany and Merrill, who had been voted least likely to do something unspeakable to him. Merrill, being an excellent friend, had brought along her staff so she could make fireworks when Hawke and Varric kissed.   
  
Cullen squinted at it. “Is that a magic staff?” he asked.   
  
“Oh, nonsense. See this bit of cloth tied up on the top? No mage staff would have that.”   
  
“It looks like a mage staff, just with some cloth badly covering the focus. Look, I can see it glowing, can’t you?”   
  
Merrill frowned. “This is a Dalish Wedding Stick. We...wave them around during the ceremony to celebrate the eternal union in front of Mythal! Yes, of course, that’s what it is.”   
  
Cullen frowned. “Sounds a bit suspicious to me.”   
  
“Are you implying that you know more about Dalish culture than me?” Merrill asked, offended. (Behind Cullen, Bethany was giggling into her hands.)   
  
“Well, no--”   
  
“Then perhaps you ought to think a bit the next time you try to speak about it.”   
  
Cullen went red and looked at his lap. Over his ducked head, Merrill and Bethany quietly high-fived.   
  
Hawke’s mother was right at the front, and had been crying a little ever since she sat down. “We just never thought this was going to happen,” she kept telling Gamlen, who was in clothes that were at least 30 years out of fashion and didn’t fit him at all. He didn’t look like he wanted to be there at all, which was fair, because the only one who wanted him there was his sister.   
  
There was a load of boring stuff that the Sister read, followed by a load of boring things a dwarf read about committing their relationship to the Stone, or something, but then everyone stepped aside and it was time for Hawke and Varric to read each other their vows.   
  
Varric went first. “Hawke. We haven’t known each other for very long, but every day I’ve spent with you has been one of the best of my life.” He gave her what appeared to be a genuine smile. “Bartrand may be a royal ass, but he did bring us together, so I’ll always have to thank him for that.”   
  
“Him, and that pickpocket you shot at.”   
  
“Oh man, you’re right! We should have invited him. Could someone call the guard to find that guy? I don’t remember his name, or what he looked like, but he should be here for this!” he called into the crowd, to mixed applause. “Eh, tough group. Anyway. Point is, there’s no one else I’d rather spend the rest of my life. I just wish...my mother could have been here to see it.”   
  
Hawke sniffled, loudly and fakely. “Oh, Varric,” she simpered. The look in her eyes said, Too much? He nodded at her minutely. Just right.   
  
Then, Hawke’s turn. “You know, all my life, my little brother Carver said I would never make it this far. To getting married, I mean. To this day I’m not sure if it was an insult or not.” There was scattered laughter from the crowd. Hawke, out of the corner of her eye, could see Bethany starting to tear up. “But in all seriousness, I wish he could be here to see this, and if we’re talking about dead parents, I wish my dad was here too. If only because he would give the chillest shovel talk of all time.”   
  
Varric, to his credit, was crying, just like they’d agreed. It wasn’t full on weeping, but Hawke would let it slide.   
  
“And like you said, there’s no one I’d rather spend the rest of my hopefully long life with than you.”   
  
Then there was more said by their officiators, and then they kissed (for not long enough, they both privately thought), and fireworks from Merrill (as well as someone yelling “I knew that wasn’t some kind of stupid Dalish ritual!” followed by the sound of someone getting bonked on the head with a big wooden staff), and then the best part:   
  
The reception.   
  
Hawke and Varric were supposed to greet their guests before they sat down, which they did, but while that was happening glasses of the very fancy wine she had helped pick out (one of the few things she was interested in) kept appearing in her hand, as if by magic. Or, as if by a very good doggy boy who was good at balancing delicate stemware on his nose.   
  
She was the bride, she was allowed to get as drunk as she wanted to. And not  _ all _ of the wine was for her. Some was for Varric.   
  
The result was a tipsy couple sitting at their table, making somewhat awkward comments to their wedding parties as they ate and listened to speeches.   
  
Bethany stood. “We’re going to make our speeches now.” She turned to Champion, Hawke’s perfect good boy who she loved very much yes what a good boy what a cutie, and said, “Speak!” Champion barked. “Speak!” Bark. “Speak!”   
  
This went on for about five minutes, until Hawke burst into tears. “Thank you, Champion,” she sobbed.   
  
“And I’ll also give a speech. My sister, Marian…”   
  
It was a good thing someone had drugged Cullen’s wine, and he was peacefully sleeping in a corner, or else he might have objected to some of the content of Bethany’s speech. As it was, he wasn’t able to, and so everyone there was treated to the story of the time their father magicked Marian’s mouth shut for a day to punish her for saying nasty things to Carver, and she was so angry she stole his staff and accidentally burned all of her hair off.   
  
(“Now, does that mean I have latent magical powers? Maybe. But that’s something I don’t want to deal with here and now. I don’t think it would go well,” Hawke said to the nightmare demon.   
  
The demon had stopped groaning in protest, and was silent.)   
  
Then there was dancing. Varric had hired a lovely band who had been secretly paid off by Hawke to play dirty tavern songs once every half an hour or so. But for their first dance, a simple waltz.   
  
Hawke had refused dance classes. “Dancing is stupid,” she’d said, “and I don’t want to do it.”   
  
“Fine, don’t take them.”   
  
“Really?”   
  
“Well, you’re good at fighting. That’s basically the same.”   
  
“Uh, pretty sure it isn’t. Just because I’m good at moving my body in extremely specific ways, doesn’t mean I’m good at moving it in other very specific ways.”   
  
That had sent some rather inappropriate thoughts into Varric’s head, and he wasn’t able to continue the argument, so the issue had been dropped.   
  
At least waltzing wasn’t really that hard. Varric guided Hawke where she was supposed to go, and what happened with her feet while that was happening was only known by the Maker. And also by Varric’s feet, unfortunately.   
  
“Your dwarf friends are boring. Are all dwarves like this?” Hawke asked him.   
  
“Only the ones direct from Orzammar.”   
  
“Like the crafts?”   
  
“Exactly. But surfacers aren’t so bad, and frankly, a lot of the casteless, when they get out, do pretty good things.”   
  
“You know any of them?”   
  
“No, Hawke, I’ve never personally  _ met _ the Hero of Ferelden, but she has a pretty good reputation.”   
  
Right, Talia Brosca, Commander of the Grey. When the news came that she’d ended the Blight, there’d been singing in the streets. Mother had cried. Hawke had still been working as a smuggler, and she made a fucking killing that day.   
  
“I think Isabela met her.”   
  
“Really? Now that’s a story I have to hear.”   
  
“When this song’s up, go ask her. I wanted to spy on Bethany and Merrill, anyway.”   
  
The party went on well into the night. Many people had to call the Guard to escort them home. Hawke caught her sister shyly kissing Merrill, and whooped loudly, which made them stop. She also caught Fenris and Isabela together, and got a thumbs up when she whooped. So all in all, a great party.   
  
She and Varric went back to the Hawke mansion, where their wedding bed sat waiting for them. It was just Hawke’s regular bed, but the sheets were washed and there were rose petals everywhere. They shook the petals off, climbed in, and fell asleep on top of each other.   
  
“At one point, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw Varric sleeping with his arm on my stomach. He was drooling. When I realized I thought that was cute, I knew it was all over for me,” Hawke told the demon.   
  
“Okay,” said the demon.   
  
“Hey, you can talk. Well, the story doesn’t end there. There’s alm ost ten years of married life to get through. We should get started.”


	3. The Marriage

Though they were married, there wasn’t much of an effort to keep up appearances. Everyone in the know knew nothing was really happening besides rampant tax fraud, and as for everyone else, it was none of their business. Hawke was  _ sure  _ all the other high society ladies were saying scandalous things about how she and her husband slept in separate beds, separate  _ buildings  _ even, but she didn’t let it bother her.   
  
“I pay good money for that room in the Hanged Man.”   
  
“I have like twenty rooms that you could use for free, though!”   
  
“Yes, but having my own place there lets me see bar fights literally whenever I want. Can I do that in your fancy mansion, Hawke?”   
  
Hawke conceded that he could not, and that he had piqued her interest in getting her own room above a bar now that he’d said that. He promised her she could visit.   
  
Everything was pretty much the same as before. They still got drunk together with all their friends, still played cards, still went tromping out of the city every month or so to clean up bandits bothering traders and Merrill’s clan. The only real difference was the way they’d begun referring to each other as “Husband” and “Wife.”   
  
“My dearest husband. Would you mind looting through that guy’s pockets for me? I’m afraid my hands are a little dirty,” Hawke would ask Varric as she flicked a dead man’s blood off her hands, and then wiped them off on the dry parts of his shirt.   
  
“My darling wife, of course I wouldn’t mind, but you know I’ll be keeping the lion’s share for myself. That’s just business, sweetheart,” Varric would say as he pocketed most of the cash.   
  
“It all ends up in the same place, my love, our shared bank account.”   
  
“Of course, my sweet.”   
  
Isabela was retching behind them. It was either real, or uncannily fake, but either way, it made Hawke smile. It was a nice distraction from the way her chest seized up when Varric called her sweet names that weren’t genuine at all. She didn’t remember who had started this trend, but she regretted it, and the unusually serious emotions it made her feel.   
  
Of course, Varric felt the same way, though because they never talked about their feelings, they didn’t know it.   
  
It actually didn’t help that their friends were constantly trying to trick them (well, mostly Hawke) into revealing their feelings. She couldn’t count the number of times Isabela had locked her out of her own house to try to make her go sleep at Varric’s (the joke was on her, Hawke just slept outside like a vagrant), or Merrill had loudly announced that it was time to share their deepest feelings, which was another thing elves totally did that she hadn’t just made up. No one was a fan of that one, though, so she quickly put a stop to it.   
  
Even  _ Bethany  _ had brought it up in her letters. ‘Dear sister,’ she wrote, ‘I have been corresponding with Merrill and the news she has to give me is most frustrating. It has been nearly six months since you and Varric were married, and you still haven’t fallen in love! Not that I was expecting it to happen right away, but I was hoping you might at least be to the point where you would be holding hands and shyly avoiding each other’s gazes. Or whatever the criminal equivalent of that would be, for you. Please, stop forcing me to read such disappointing news, and just get on with it already.’   
  
Hawke responded, ‘Bethany, I have only two things to say to you. One, nothing is happening between me and Varric. Two, what are you doing writing letters to Merrill?’   
  
That was the thing to focus on, obviously, her sister’s budding romantic relationship with her friend. Absolutely nothing else.   
  
Usually, when Hawke took her friends out looking for a scrap these days, it was her, Varric, and a rotation of her mage and sword friends. Not that she didn’t love Isabela, but sometimes there were just enough knives, and there didn’t need to be anymore, no matter how well they were hidden in Isabela’s various secret pockets.   
  
But this issue, with Merrill and Bethany, was a purely girl issue, so she needed a purely girl team. It didn’t hurt that Isabela would be able to charm Merrill into talking, and that Aveline would be able to knock some sense into them that Merrill was a blood mage so maybe writing letters to a girl at the Circle wasn’t the best idea? Even if it was for  _ love _ , which Hawke kind of hoped it wasn’t.   
  
Not because she didn’t support her sister, but because once those two fell in love, then everyone would start, and Hawke didn’t know what was worse: that she and Varric would follow the trend, or that they wouldn’t. Especially since she was already…   
  
Anyway. She invited the other three for a Girls’ Night Out, and they lit up the town.   
  
After dispatching some slavers in the Alienage, it was time to talk to Merrill about this, on their walk back to the Hanged Man. “Merrill,” Hawke said.   
  
“Yes?”   
  
Hawke leaned up against Isabela. Not because she was hurt, but because Isabela had a good many surfaces for leaning on, and usually welcomed it. “I’ve heard you’ve been writing letters to my sister?”   
  
“Oh, how interesting,” Isabela said.   
  
Merrill beamed. “Yes! Bethany is quite a good writer, and she has such interesting opinions. It’s also very nice to hear what life is like in the Circles, for people like us. Mages, I mean. Obviously.”   
  
“And it doesn’t hurt that my sister is cute as a button, huh?”   
  
“Oh, not at all--” Merrill froze, and then blushed. “Er.”   
  
“You know if Templars caught you, they’d kill you on the spot for blood magic, right?” Aveline cut in. “Are you sure this is safe? Because I am not.”   
  
“Excellent question, Aveline. Also, Merrill, before you answer that, something a little more important: what are your intentions with my sister?”   
  
“Er.”   
  
“You can be honest with us, Merrill,” Isabela added. “Who here hasn’t thought about a bit of a roll in the sack with Bethany?”   
  
“ME?” Hawke answered loudly.   
  
“Besides you.”   
  
Hawke shuddered. Gross, gross, gross. Ugh, if only Varric had been there to see that. Speaking of, there was the Hanged Man.   
  
They went in, Isabela and Aveline now arguing about Bethany, which Hawke was tuning out, while Merrill had gone mute between them, not daring to answer any of their questions. Varric was at his usual table, in the back, nursing a large mug of something. Hawke sauntered up to him.   
  
“How is my favorite husband this evening?” she asked him, dropping down into the seat across from him.   
  
“I don’t like that qualifier. Makes me think I’m not your only husband,” Varric said with a chuckle.   
  
“My evening is going great. We killed a bunch of slavers, and now we’re here,” Hawke continued, as though she hadn’t heard what he had said.   
  
“You went out fighting without me?”   
  
“Are you...upset?”   
  
Varric did look a little ruffled. Weird. “Well, you know, I just thought we did everything as a  _ team _ now that we’re married. Apparently not.” He shuffled some papers, upset.   
  
Hawke raised an eyebrow. “You know our marriage isn’t real, right?”   
  
“It’s on paper! Legally, it’s real. I do our finances, I manage your position on the Kirkwall Council, I--”   
  
Hawke stared at him. Isabela and Aveline had stopped arguing and were also staring at him. Merrill had taken a seat and was looking at him through her fingers, because she had covered her face with her hands in embarrassment over the Bethany conversation.   
  
Varric took all that in as he faltered, but quickly recovered with, “And think of the  _ children _ !”   
  
Hawke, thankfully, took the bait. “I am! That’s why I brought these three out with me tonight, so we could talk to Merrill about how she wants to bone down on Bethany!”   
  
“No,” Merrill interjected, “Bethany and I are just friends--”   
  
“Wait, this I have to hear,” Varric interrupted. “Merrill, are you trying to start some kind of salacious relationship with my sister-in-law?”   
  
“No!”   
  
“Forbidden romance between a human Circle mage and a Dalish blood mage. It practically writes itself.” He pulled a fresh sheet of paper out from its pile and jotted down a few notes. “You got a few minutes to answer some questions?”   
  
Merrill groaned, and the tension was completely dissolved. But Hawke wasn’t going to forget the way Varric had reacted. Why had he gotten so upset? He knew it was a farce, even if on her end there was something there, but that didn’t matter because there wasn’t on his, right?   
  
Aveline pulled her aside after about ten minutes. “Hawke, is it just me, or was that a little strange?”   
  
“What do you mean? Was what strange?”   
  
“Varric just seemed a little...odd, how he reacted to you not bringing him along.”   
  
Hawke nodded in understanding. “But we don’t have to go  _ everywhere  _ together, do we?” That would be weird. Hawke sometimes had to use the bathroom, and Varric probably did, too.   
  
Aveline shrugged. “All I’ll say is around the time we first got married, Wesley  _ hated  _ it when I went off with other men. Or, other people who he thought might have some kind of attraction to me.” She looked over at Isabela, who was laughing at something Varric was saying. Hawke felt a pang of something unfamiliar in her chest and her throat, something that felt awfully similar to the first time her dad had taken Bethany off for one-on-one magic lessons when they were kids.   
  
“Well, but, Varric and I don’t have that kind of marriage,” Hawke replied, swallowing her envy.   
  
Aveline raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that?”   
  
“I’m…”   
  
They’d told her to talk with him about it, so maybe it was her own fault she was feeling these weird things, because she didn’t know how she was supposed to feel. But it had been  _ months _ . Surely if something was supposed to give, it would have by that point.   
  
Still, Hawke didn’t sleep very well that night.   
  
“Things got kind of boring for a little while after that,” Hawke told the nightmare demon, which had now shrunk down to about the size of a horse. She was still on it, now simply lying on its back. “The next interesting thing to happen was probably...all that stuff that happened around me becoming the Champion of Kirkwall.”   
  
“I know of this. You have nightmares of this time, or your mother rising from the grave, or the Arishok impaling you on his--”   
  
“Yeah, shut up, Lobster Face.”   
  
The Qunari were starting to get restless, now that it was looking like they weren’t going to be getting...whatever it was they were in the city for. There were people from the Chantry trying to frame their for crimes, and straight up torturing some of them.   
  
It felt like one day they were fighting Bartrand and his red lyrium, which appeared to be some kind of sentient being, even though it was just rock, and the next day, they were tracking a murderer who’d put Hawke’s mother’s face on a corpse doll that was meant to look like his dead wife.   
  
It wasn’t all bad, though it did suck for a while. They helped Aveline with her relationship with Guardsman Donnic! It was a lovely wedding, though not as good as Hawke and Varric’s.   
  
Hawke didn’t really have a lot of time to process everything that had happened over the past few weeks, because right after all of that, she was fighting the actual Arishok after he killed the viscount. They successfully kicked the Qunari out of the city, and then Hawke was the Champion of Kirkwall, and suddenly she had a very convenient outlet for her feelings about her mother.   
  
Alcohol.   
  
“The thing people don’t tell you about marriage is that it isn’t all fun and games and crazy sex. There’s hard times, too,” Varric advised Inquisitor Trevelyan.   
  
“Not a helpful thing to tell me right before I propose?”   
  
“You have to know the realities before you do anything that’ll change the course of your whole life,” Varric said.   
  
“But I love Josephine. I do want to be with her, no matter what. No matter if she gets depressed and becomes an alcoholic.”   
  
Varric’s face went dark for a second, and Trevelyan thought she might have said something wrong. “She wouldn’t like that word. Alcoholic.”   
  
“Person who drinks every day to cope with feelings they don’t know how to deal with?”   
  
“You forgot the part about passing out most nights.”   
  
“Is this when you guys finally started having sex?” Trevelyan asked, excited to finally get to that part of the story.   
  
“I’m getting there! Now, about Hawke’s alcoholism.”   
  
Being the Champion of Kirkwall, Hawke could get free drinks almost anywhere in the city, and she was taking advantage of it. Why talk about her feelings with her friends and remaining family when she could just drink them, which was free and also way easier? Exactly.   
  
And when Hawke drank until she was out cold, there had to be someone to pull her out of those bars and get her home, and more nights than not, it was Varric.   
  
There was one particularly bad night at a bar in Hightown that Hawke liked to go to because apparently everyone there knew her name. Varric knew that was because she was famous, and because her name was a common bird, but he wasn’t at the point where he wanted to hurt her feelings, especially when it was so easy to get her home from there.   
  
He’d hoisted her over his shoulder as usual, letting her fingers drag along the cobbles, and was lugging her home when she stirred.   
  
“Why are you doing this?” she murmured to him.   
  
Varric chuckled. “We’re married, remember?”   
  
Hawke sniffled. “So? It’s not like it means anything.”   
  
Varric frowned. They’d never really talked about that part, and it was kind of upsetting to hear it from her, even when she was falling-down drunk. “Sure it does. We’re--we’re a team now, Hawke. I signed a piece of paper that legally obligates me to do all this stuff, remember? You signed it too.”   
  
The mood was not improving, no matter how hard Varric tried, and Hawke was really not helping when she said, “I don’t want people to keep pretending they care about me when they don’t. And the people who  _ really  _ do just get hurt. I don’t want you to get hurt.”   
  
“You’re sounding remarkably lucid. And anyway, there’s only one person who can hurt me.”   
  
Hawke fidgeted. “Who is it? I’ll fight him! Is it Bianca? I don’t know her but I’ll fight her.”   
  
Varric laughed. “No, Hawke, it’s not Bianca.”   
  
“I’ll still fight whoever it is,” she muttered, before she fell back asleep on Varric’s shoulder.   
  
A few minutes later, Varric got to Hawke’s house, and dropped her off with Bodahn, who was glad to see her alive, if unconscious. After that, Varric went back to the Hanged Man. He had a few drinks himself, and went to sleep, still worried for his wife.   
  
Several months passed like that. Hawke got better, but not  _ much  _ better. She spent more time drinking with her friends than alone, which did mean more time at the Hanged Man, though. It was relieving for Varric, because he knew exactly where she was and he could keep her from drinking herself to death on accident that way. And, if she passed out or something, he had a room upstairs, and no one had to lug her home in the middle of the night.   
  
Hawke wasn’t treating it like a very big deal. Every time it happened she had some kind of wisecrack for Varric--”Who would have ever guessed I’d be spending most of my nights this week waking up in my my husband’s bed?”--but Varric didn’t find it very funny. Hawke was clearly in pain, and  _ clearly  _ needed to talk about it, but she wouldn’t. Wasn’t that what being her husband was for? Listening to Hawke go off about her problems?   
  
But she didn’t think it was  _ real _ , his mind would always bitterly add. Even though if she wanted it to be, it could be, and if she asked he would give her his  _ heart-- _   
  
Though, if he was being honest with himself, he’d done that a long time ago.   
  
Ugh, this was bad. He hadn’t meant to actually go and fall for her.

 

(Then he berated himself for reading too many romance novels late at night. Give her his heart? Like something out of a Taniela Iron book.)   
  
What Varric  _ didn’t  _ know at the time was that Hawke was pretty far gone on him, too, and his attention was really only helping her with those pesky emotional issues, and to an extent, her drinking. Waking up to the man you loved carrying you home from some stupid dive bar, it made you feel things, and Hawke wanted to feel those things more. So she started hanging out more at the Hanged Man, because then she could see him more (she’d long since given up on denying her feelings), and maybe it would happen more often. And then, the first time she’d woken up in his bed,  _ that  _ had been something else completely, something she quite enjoyed.   
  
And so she was spending less time drinking, and more time only  _ pretending  _ to get black-out drunk so she could be 100% aware of everything that was going on. Sure, it was dishonest, and maybe a little unethical, but she was drinking less, and spending time with her friends (and husband) was really helping her cope with her mother’s death.   
  
Sue her.   
  
One thing Hawke didn’t know, though, was that Varric wasn’t the most popular dwarf in town. Well, she did know that, but what she wasn’t 100% aware of was that there was a family in the Merchant’s Guild that hated Varric so much they regularly sent assassins after him pretty much on a whim. Something about him trying to make off with their daughter. He wouldn’t explain.   
  
Anyway, on one of these nights, when she was pretending to sleep in his bed while he worked at his desk, a few of these assassins arrived. They’d never come to his  _ room  _ before, because that was considered kind of rude, but these particular Carta members were a little overzealous, and were going to have to pay for it.   
  
The one thing that might have given the assassins an edge was the fact that Varric had left Bianca next to the bed when he’d dropped Hawke into it. Like any sensible person, he had several knives in his desk, but he was well out of practice, and was having a little difficulty. Just a little. Not very much. But enough that Hawke was worried for a split second, so she sat up, picked up Bianca, and shot one of the pair in the foot.   
  
Everyone in the room froze, except the guy who had just been shot, who fell to the ground in pain.   
  
The other assassin asked, “Who are you?”   
  
Hawke answered, “I’m his wife.”   
  
Then she shot him in the dick.   
  
In the confusion that followed, Hawke was able to toss Varric his crossbow, slice the throat of the one who’d been shot in the foot, and dump the pair of them out the window.   
  
“All right! That’s taken care of. I’m just gonna go--”   
  
“Hawke.”   
  
Hawke stopped halfway out the door. “Yeah?”   
  
“Sit down.”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
Hawke sat at the foot of the bed.   
  
“So.”   
  
“So.”   
  
“Not so drunkenly passed out as you seemed, huh?” He crossed his arms.   
  
“Haha,” Hawke chuckled nervously. “I got better? I drank lots of water?”   
  
“One time I went to wake you up after a night of drinking and it took you twenty minutes to stop yelling at me with my eyes closed.”   
  
“Well, I must have been very tired that morning.”   
  
“Hawke. Seriously. What’s going on?”   
  
“Well, it looks like someone just tried to kill you, that seems important--”   
  
“With you! Damn it, Hawke, what...was this? Why were you pretending to sleep in here?” He banged his fist on the desk. Hawke didn’t jump, but it did make her blink. Wow, he was upset.   
  
“Uh. Hmm. That’s a fun question. Would you accept ‘I don’t know’ as an answer?”   
  
“No.”   
  
“How about ‘It’s kind of embarrassing so I prefer not to answer?’”   
  
He rolled his eyes. “You have only intrigued me more.”   
  
“Varric,” Hawke said.   
  
“Hawke,” Varric said.   
  
“Okay fine! Fine. I’ve been pretending to get super drunk so you’ll take care of me and stuff. It’s nice to know that there’s still somebody in my life who does, after my mom. Ironically, your unconditional support and care has actually made me want to drink less, so I fake pretty much every time I black out these days.”   
  
Varric frowned sadly. “You don’t have to pretend to drink yourself into unconsciousness for me to care about you. You’re my best friend, Hawke--”   
  
“And that’s--! That’s fine. The way that is. That’s cool. Whatever. It’s just, sometimes...Ugh, I hate talking about my feelings. You  _ know  _ this.” She sighed and rubbed her hand over her face. “Sometimes, when I think about you, my mind goes to very  _ not  _ friendly places. If we’re doing honesty hour. And I get it, you don’t feel the same way, and our marriage was a farce, and you have that crossbow lady, but it has  _ sucked  _ keeping this in this whole time, and I don’t want to bother you anymore with my dumbass pining, so I had to say it. Okay? That’s it.”   
  
She got up to leave again, but Varric jumped up and ran to block the door.   
  
“Listen. I know you love dramatically leaving conversations so you can have the last word, because who doesn’t, but I have some things to say, too, so you might want to sit down.”   
  
“I’d rather not?”   
  
“I’ve been sleeping on the couch for three weeks because of you. The least you can do is hear me out.”   
  
“You always hear about wives making their husbands sleep on the couch, but I never thought this was why,” Hawke joked weakly.   
  
Varric snorted. “Glad you’re still making married jokes, even with everything you just said. Seriously. Have a seat. You’ll want to hear this.”   
  
Hawke went back to sit down at the foot of the bed.   
  
Varric sat back in his chair, rested his elbows on the armrests, and steepled his fingers. “We’re a couple of dumbass idiots.”   
  
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.”   
  
“Seriously! God damn. If we’d just talked about this stuff earlier, we could have saved ourselves so much…”   
  
Hawke cocked her head to the side, confused.   
  
“Do  _ not  _ make me say the word heartache.” He pointed at her threateningly. “That’s for my romance novels only.”   
  
“I thought you’d already written, like, four romance novels about me?”   
  
“I told you that in  _ confidence--  _ no. But Hawke, you have to listen to me here. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”   
  
“We’ve already established that I do not. Like, the first day we met.”   
  
“What was it you said? When you think of me, your mind goes to some patently unfriendly places? Well, I’m the same.”   
  
Hawke frowned. “Are you saying you hate me?”   
  
“Maker’s--Hawke, I’m saying I love you too!”   
  
Hawke blinked. Her face went red. She looked at her feet. It was kind of astounding to see her embarrassed like this--every time someone had surprised Hawke before, she had blustered her way through it, but now she was speechless. It was literally the first time Varric had seen this.   
  
“Oh,” she said.   
  
“Yeah. Oh,” he confirmed.   
  
Hawke swallowed. Varric didn’t say anything. “So, what do we do about this?” she asked.   
  
“Well, in an ideal world, everything is the same--”   
  
“Oh, well in that case--”   
  
“--except now we do things an  _ actual  _ married couple would do. In the physical sense.”   
  
Hawke nodded. “Okay. Okay. I can live with that.”


	4. Love

“This is the nice part,” Varric told Inquisitor Trevelyan fondly.   
  
They didn’t immediately jump into bed. It would have maybe been a little weird. That night, Varric walked Hawke home, like a gentleman, and the next day he came by to take her to lunch. There was a large part of him that wanted to do this Right, like he hadn’t been able to do with Bianca.   
  
(Speaking of Bianca, he’d received a letter from her a few days after his and Hawke’s confessions, and he had written a polite response that he was, in fact, married now, and perhaps it would be better for the both of them if they quit doing things that would be dangerous for both of him, or at least, him. He hadn’t received a response.)   
  
Hawke thought the whole thing was kind of silly, but went along with it. She liked the funny, somewhat stilted way he acted until she managed to get him loosened up about halfway through each date. And she especially liked taking his weird little date outfits off at the end of the night (weird because he always insisted on buttoning his shirts up so she couldn’t see his chest).   
  
It was a really exciting time for Hawke. She felt like a mabari with a new bone, except the bone was her husband who she had already been married to. Like a mabari with a bone that he had been allowed to smell, and then was put up on the shelf for a few years, finally returned to his awaiting jaws.   
  
Instead of telling their friends, they decided to be subtle. They took Merrill and Aveline out to Sundermount to clear the area around where Merrill’s clan was camped out of monsters and bandits and the like. Toward the end of the fight, Varric shot a spider dead between the eyes and it  _ exploded _ . Merrill clapped. Aveline looked impressed.   
  
“New coating on the heads of the bolts. Makes ‘em explosive,” Varric explained.   
  
“That was incredible!” Hawke cried. She bent down and kissed him.   
  
Merrill’s staff clattered to the ground. “You!”   
  
Varric patted Hawke’s back. “Us."   
  
Later, and Hawke didn’t know how she did it, Isabela appeared at Hawke’s mansion. Isabela, who had been out of Kirkwall for months, was back within three days of that kiss, sitting in Hawke’s parlor.   
  
“What are you doing here?” Hawke asked.   
  
“I’m here for one thing, and one thing only.” Isabela crossed her legs, and then her arms. “Tell me about that dick.”   
  
She left the next morning, after grilling Hawke about her marriage, but it was still nice to see her.   
  
Life in general was just...  _ better _ , after they got everything sorted out. Everything was mostly the same, except now when Hawke would boast, “Well, MY husband has written BOOKS, Lady Ilenna, he just published one last week. What did your husband do last week? Get drunk and fall down the sewer into Darktown?” she wasn’t just talking about her friend Varric who she also happened to be married to. She was talking about her friend Varric, who she also happened to be married to, and loved, and loved her back.   
  
And when Varric, being interrogated by a Seeker of the Truth, said, “No, really, my wife  _ actually  _ killed the Arishok. Not in single combat, no, but she believes in the power of friendship and all that shit, so,” he wasn’t making a self-deprecating joke to himself about how he’d married this woman he loved but it wasn’t  _ real _ , because now, it was.   
  
“Until, you know. Adamant.”   
  
Inquisitor Trevelyan winced. “I am still sorry about that.”   
  
“It’s fine, Evelyn. Seriously. You know, I’m managing. I have the dog now, and I think he’s probably sadder than me,” Varric joked. “I keep in touch with Bethany, it could be worse.”   
  
“Still, she was your wife, and...I just had all this Grey Warden hero worship, and Alistair told me all those stories about how he helped end the Blight, and I just…” Trevelyan sighed. “I’m never going to really be able to apologize for what happened, but you have to know, at the very least, that I feel awful about it.”   
  
Varric patted her arm. “It’s okay. It helps to talk about her.”   
  
Evelyn swallowed. “Did I ever tell you her last words?” she asked.   
  
“No. Did she have them?”   
  
“She told us to run so she could fight off the Nightmare demon, and then she said to me, ‘Tell Varric this story isn’t over yet.’ Then we went back through the Veil and that was it.”   
  
“That’s...thanks for telling me.” Varric wiped something off his face. Tears? Andraste, now Evelyn felt even  _ worse _ . “Well. Guess I have to go update my  _ Tale of the Champion _ now, for that. Don’t know how happy the fans will be about it, but…”   
  
“It’s as good an ending as any.”   
  
“Well, no, a perfect ending would have her walking out of the Fade, ready to tell me about more of her adventures, but...I guess this is as good as I’m going to get.” He pulled a little notebook out of his back pocket. “Could you, uh...give me some time alone?”   
  
“Of course.” Inquisitor Trevelyan patted his arm, and left the hall. She needed a drink.   
  
\---   
  
“Have you ever been married?” Hawke asked the dragon lady.   
  
“You know, I would prefer not to talk about that.”   
  
Hawke shrugged. “That’s fair. So, yeah, we fled Kirkwall, traveled around the Free Marches for a little while, but then Varric had to go back, and then he got picked up by those people who are now the Inquisition. Bethany stayed behind in the city with Merrill to help out with the Alienage, and Aveline’s there to look after them, too, Fenris and Isabela are off killing slavers, Sebastian’s throwing a fit back in Starkhaven, and I don’t know where Anders is.”   
  
“Hmm.”   
  
“Then, you get the gist of the rest. Varric finally wrote me to ask me to come to the Inquisition, and I did, and then I fell into the Fade with the Inquisitor and her friends and she left me here.”   
  
“Which is how you ran into me,” the dragon woman said.   
  
“Yes. Tamed the nightmare demon,” she pointed at her shoulder, where a cat-sized crab thing was sitting, “wandered off, and here we are!”   
  
“It really is astounding that I found you.”   
  
“I think maybe _ I _ found  _ you _ ? ”   
  
“No, child, it’s the other way around. But really, what are the odds? That just days before I call my grandson to me from this Inquisition you won’t stop going on about, I find  _ you _ , the person who helped me return to my physical form in the first place?”   
  
“Thanks about killing that ogre again, really, don’t know what we would have done without you being there.”   
  
“Do not flatter me. It was quite literally nothing for me. But what  _ you  _ did is something that deserves at least a little more repayment, don’t you think?” the dragon lady asked.   
  
“I mean, I’m not gonna say no. ”   
  
The dragon woman laughed. “Haha! Of course you aren’t. Now, I have a little bit of business to attend to with my grandson and my daughter, so why don’t you just have a seat over there?”   
  
Hawke sat, while the Nightmare demon whispered in her ear, “This seems like it could go very badly for us.”   
  
“Shh. This woman can turn into a  _ dragon _ . Whatever she’s going to do, it’s most likely going to be one of the most badass things I’ll ever see.”   
  
A glowing portal appeared, and then a child came through. They walked a ways away from it, while the dragon woman chatted with the child, calling him Kieran and asking him about his mother. A few minutes later, a woman Hawke had never seen before who was wearing very little clothing, and the Inquisitor herself, appeared.   
  
What followed was some family drama that Hawke was completely out of her depth for. The dragon woman (Flemeth? Mythal? Confusing.) wanted the child, but the yellow-eyed witch wanted him more, and the Inquisitor found herself being controlled by Flemeth, who was supposedly some kind of Elvhen goddess. Then Flemeth took something from the child, and the Inquisitor and the witch rushed the boy back through the portal.   
  
“I think you ought to follow them,” Flemeth told Hawke.   
  
“Right! Thank you again, I think?” She looked at the nightmare demon, sitting on her shoulder. “Well, it’s been fun.” She pushed it off, stomped on it, and then ran through the portal, just as it was closing.   
  
The Inquisitor and the witch were fussing over the child. Hawke cleared her throat. They both stared at her. “So that’s a working Eluvian, huh?” She appraised the mirror. “My friend had one of these, but she couldn’t get it open. Although maybe she has, we haven’t talked in a while.”   
  
“Hawke?”   
  
“The one and only.”   
  
“How did you--what--” The Inquisitor was lost for words.   
  
“That lady you all were talking with back there? I helped her out once, and she decided she still owed me. So she led me to that portal mirror thing, and now I’m back!” Hawke smiled. “Now, where is my husband?”   
  
Varric was playing cards with Bull and Sera and Dorian, and cleaning up. They had a nice little table on the second floor of the bar, and so that was where Trevelyan took Hawke.   
  
Varric’s back was to the stairs, an interesting tactical choice, and he was a few cups in, so Hawke was able to drag a chair up next to him and say, “Well, the music is all right, but you can’t beat the atmosphere at the Hanged Man.”   
  
Varric looked up at her. She smiled.   
  
“Am I dreaming?” he asked.   
  
“Thought dwarves didn’t do that?”   
  
“No, Hawke, we dream, we just don’t go to the Fade, I’ve told you this how many times?”   
  
“Tell me another, and maybe I won’t forget again.”   
  
“She’s real, Varric,” the Inquisitor said, interrupting their banter. “She came out of the Fade with us, after Kieran got lured in by Morrigan’s mom. Who incidentally is some kind of goddess? It’s been a long hour.”   
  
“You know I’m going to need more proof than that,” Varric said with a snort.   
  
“Don’t be fucking rude, Varric, it’s me, and I can prove it.” Hawke cleared her throat. For a second, everyone at the table sat with bated breath, waiting for Hawke to say something embarrassing, but then she asked, “Where is my dog?”   
  
They found Champion, who did what looked like a full backflip the second he smelled his mom, and that was enough for everyone, who left Hawke and Varric alone to catch up.   
  
“You got any more proof?”   
  
“I mean, I could have told everyone about that mole on your butt--”   
  
“Hawke, I believe it’s you. I meant something a little more, you know.” He waggled his eyebrows.   
  
“Varric, I’ve been in the Fade for months. I just want to sleep.”   
  
He smiled. “I figured.”   
  
“And then we’ll have sex in the morning.”   
  
He laughed, and showed her to his bed. It was big enough for two. “Goodnight, Hawke.”   
  
She yawned, stripped down to her underthings, and climbed in. “Goodnight, Varric.”   
  
Until death do them part.   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! my fanfic blog is lydiawhinesaboutfanfiction.tumblr.com and my regular blog is lydiacatfish.tumblr.com
> 
> thank you to my friend sarah who i was able to talk to about this because it was a surprise!
> 
> i know lots of it is out of character and dumb don't @ me i just hope you liked it


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